We are stars made of stars. And if you're a little New-Age-y like me, you're a star whose fate is in the stars...
...what happens when your stars die?
Hello, I am "Lilith". I'm back because I never should have left, ever. I never should have left my LiveJournal and Blogdrive blogs. I'm back because I know who I am by keeping a journal. I'm back because I find pieces of who I am from my old entries. I'm back because I met an awesome woman in her forties who I aspire to be, who pushed me to revive the old me.
I have lost myself throughout the years. Unfortunately, when I found the love of my life, I had to give myself up... I forgot who I am. I don't know who I am anymore, or I'm not sure. I don't even know what to do.
Who am I?
You won't find out who you are by thinking about it, but by actively making your life better. How do you know where to start when you have too many things to do and you don't know where to begin?
I make a list at work.
Where am I now? What is going on? What are my deliverables, who is the person in charge, what's the deadline and the status?
I think my life needs that right now.
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1. Family
Mom is done with her chemotherapy. It's been almost a year. I was crushed a few weeks ago when she told me that her oncologist said that the effectivity of chemo lasts for just two years. I don't know if she noticed a change in my expression when she told me that, but I felt... what was it? A rush of heat go up my chest from my stomach? I think remnants of that sensation reached my face. Some mothers can tell how you really feel behind a heavily-cemented expression... I can only pray that I've become so good at displaying a tough, positive exterior that it gets troubling because people think I'm okay.
I'm not okay. It's been almost a year since mom started chemo. The possibility of metasteses will go up two years after day one.
How is she? Is she okay? She said it so casually that I can't tell if she is learning to accept her situation. Once, before she told me this, she used the word 'terminal' to refer to her condition. It bothered me, but I brushed it off and thought she was just being pessismistic or did not want to have high expectations for her survival. I honestly believe she will crush this cancer and overcome it and age as I have always imagined her to be... together with dad... but I wonder if she's just handling things one day at a time, attending to day-to-day concerns as usual, until whatever happens, happens. I hated that thought. I hated that things have become lax at home... and that I am responsible for it, as well.
I was the leader: I had the best plans that will help her recover fast. I led activities that not only helped her get healthy, but made her happy and brought our family closer, as well. Unfortunately, dad was just not into it. He's was too into himself and his own concerns that he could barely be bothered about his wife's health. I've learned long ago to accept that he doesn't love mom the way he should, but I had a bit of hope when mom was diagnosed.
Apparently, the crying and worrying and getting sick over mom's condition wasn't really for mom, but for himself. Who's going to take care of him? Who will stay by his side through thick and GODDAMNFUCKINGTHIN? He knows there's a huge possibility I would go the other way if he and I were left alone because he knows just how difficult of a person he is. He knows I wouldn't put up with his attitude. I love him no matter what, no matter how he is--but now, I'd like to make it clear that I have a love-hate relationship with dad. He treats mom so badly, it's unforgivable. He's unapologetic and yet he years for pity. Indeed, he is pitiful... but there's a whole side of him I just can't accept.
Dad's sick, too. He is afraid of getting checked because he knows he would lose it if the doctor tells him he has something terrible. Mom's condition was a shock; unexpected. He can't stop thinking that the same thing can happen to him.
Has our family bonded more since mom was diagnosed? A little. We still get on each other's nerves, we still scream at each other. Well... mom and dad do. It's like nothing happened. Whenever I'm around, I try to neutralize (WHAT. NOPE.) things by taking mom's side and yelling at my dad (YES. WRONG.) but when mom's on her own, I just wonder how much damage my dad does to her health. He's done so much, but he's in denial... so he keeps going.
Do I know a possible solution to help bond our family? Yes. Can I fix my parents' relationship? No.
Dad will always treat mom as a punching bag and a stressball. He will always find her annoying. I will always be angry that mom will never leave him, because I have tried to convince her so many times and even told her I had been dreaming about it since I was ten... but no. She never will.
All I can try to do is make sure he will never be her cause of demise!
2. Health
I may have fixed my bowel problems, but I am feeling all sorts of wrong somewhere in my abdominal area. I first felt discomfort the same month mom was diagnosed, but I brushed it off, thinking my body was having sympathetics... symptoms (?!) similar to mom's. I ignored it, and it didn't bother me until mid-year.
I experienced some pain after relieving myself. The pain was inconsistent, but it was always after I went to the bathroom. I got sick, got cured, had lab tests and everything was clear. The pain stopped.
The discomfort is apparent this month. I also had a few episodes of the same after-urinating pain and it lasted for a few minutes. At one point, I had to sleep it off so it would go away. I think I can feel a bulge inside my abdomen. I have a feeling I have stones... where and what kind, I'll have to find out when I see an OB.
I'm not okay.
3. Career
My third job redundated me because they can't afford my talent fee. Hmph! Eff you, too. It's okay, I was handling a dying brand... even though I had such good memories with that brand. Mom and I bonded over it and it's what got me into a particular Asian cuisine. Oh, well. I was thankful to get an invitation from an international company belonging to the same industry as my second and third jobs. The position was higher, the pay was higher, the people from my department are amazing and the brands somehow had a budget to spend initiatives on. Most people were difficult, though, especially our internal clients... but that's just how it is.
I won't lie, the job is difficult. It takes someone who is really in love with her field to stay as long as she can within the company. And, since it isn't family-friendly, and my family really needs me at the moment, I resigned after just 2 months. Initially, and on my first month, too, I brought that up with my boss. She declined and asked me to give it another chance by splitting time between work and my mom. I did... and stayed for another month. It didn't work, and now I have health complications, too. I end my contract with them next month... now I'm troubled for my career path.
I'm Miss Starts-Something-and-Never-Finishes-it. I've always been... well, since high school. Fuck high school, man, seriously. So much trauma from high school and college fucked me up and turned me into who I am, now. It's hard to accept who you are if you don't like who you are. I'm everywhere and nowhere. Mostly nowhere. Mostly a nobody. Nothing.
Now I'm looking into freelancing. I want to write and do voiceovers on the side. Here we go again. Because I don't have connections, and my skills need honing, and how fucking old am I? I feel demotivated about even starting somewhere. That's what always gets me down. Here's how I've always handled my career:
"I'll never be as good as _____."
"I'm not that good."
"She is better than I am."
"I wish I could be as good as _____."
"My skills aren't enough."
"I'm not as skilled/experienced."
"It's so hard."
"I'm trying hard, but am still not as good."
"It's a long way ahead and others my age/who are younger are more advanced than I am. It's useless, I'll just stop here and go with the flow."
Mom and dad told me I had a defeatist attitude ever since I was little. They didn't know where I got that from, because they couldn't think of anyone who was like that. When they asked me to do something, I would take a look at it and say I couldn't do it - e.g. climbing a wall, etc.
I fell out of love with my current field and, strangely, even when it's fucking annoying, I'm okay with it. At least I know it wasn't something anyone forced on me. I wasn't pressured to take all the fields I took since I graduated. I think that I am, at the moment, undergoing trial-and-error (bad for someone in their mid-twenties due to the increasingly demanding, aggressive and harsh world we live in!) career-wise and I'm taking baby steps to find myself in this regard. There's no other way but to do so, so I shouldn't really get mad about it, no matter how frustrating it really is. If I keep making the same mistakes (not exactly mistakes since it's T&E), I'll always be unhappy.
Who was I before all the pressure started? I was a writer and an artist. I was interested in sketching, speaking and writing. What were my favorite subjects in school? Retracing steps would probably help, so I'll do that.
I continued getting interesting interview invitations from good companies since I started at my current job but I knew I couldn't commit to a similar position after this. God knows I would have continued practicing my current profession if my previous employer didn't kick me out just because they were poor. If I had received the right kind of attention and training, I would have been great. I would have matured in this industry.
Alas, God has other plans for me.
4. Love
I broke up with Miles* when I started at my new job and I think we're currently at the process of patching things up. It really takes both parties to do so, because we've been going back and forth, switching roles all the time. We're both naturally terrible to each other, but one always gives way to the other. We just never happened to gentlemen at the same time... until now. I think.
Before all this, I felt slightly lost, but tried to look at the good side of things. I wanted to go wild. I wanted to mess around with strangers I'll never meet again. I wanted to be bad. I wanted to date, meet new people, pretend I have a vice or two... or four. I found myself talking to Jesse*. I don't know how things escalated that fast, but within weeks were... dating, or in some sort of exclusive mutual understanding. That was days after I left Miles. I was transparent with him, and I thought he understood my situation. Although I had always been interested in my relationship with him in another universe, or another time, I knew somehow it could never be on mine. We attempted that... we failed.
Although it wasn't my fault, it was made to look like I fucked things up. Typical Jesse, actually. He blows up out of nowhere and you just can't figure out what sets him off. I thought he had finally grown out of that attitude. It is now clear to me that that's his nature... just as mine is I am unforgiving, and Miles is he's just uninterested, and dad's is he just thinks of himself/he's selfish. Jesse just finds a way to get pissed or upset at the strangest things. And he gets so, very, passionately upset.
He dumped me because I wanted to be selfless. I was thinking of his feelings, of his heart. I didn't want to hurt him. I wanted to do the right thing.
I hadn't gotten over my six-year relationship to my ex-fiance, and I had problems left and right. I told him I was broken, I told him if I wanted to deserve him, I had to be whole, and since he said we should take it easy, that I should slow the shit down, that WHOA MUHFUCKR I should step the fuck back for a sec, then he shouldn't be talking about getting me to move to where he is and living under one roof and marrying me. It freaked me out--yes, strange, those things usually don't! It did.
I also didn't like the way he played hard to get, like Hugh* did when he got at me and manipulated me. I now realize I do these things to Miles... all the time. Getting a dose of your own medicine never goes well... at first. If it teaches you a lesson, it's worth it.
I've become quite the optimist. I have to be... for my loved ones.
Uh, going back... after the dumping, I focused on work and other things, and when I finally tried to reach out to Jesse again, he made a snarky comment about how I "just didn't feel like talking to him" two weeks after our last conversation. I figured that he obviously ignored me on purpose. I was disgusted, but since I wasn't trying to chase him the way he wanted, I decided to slow down even more. I figured he wanted to be chased, and I didn't want to. I wasn't going to give him that because what he did to me made him unworthy. I saw Hugh in him and I was correct to never chase the guy.
A few years down the road, and if he changes into a better man (like Hugh) and I happen to be single, I might.
Well, because Hugh changed. He's less of an asshole, though still freaky/creepy, and getting less and less genuinely interested in me. Probably happens when you slowly realize you'll never really end up with the person you're in love with.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is why two people who used to have romantic feelings for each other can never truly be just friends, except in special situations.
In my case, men will only stay interested in you as long as they can get you. If all you want to be is friends with them, no matter how many times they swear they have your back even when you don't end up with them...
...it's horseshit.
5. Friendship
I'm also trying to trace my friendship traumas to find ways to fix it. One of the reasons I'm introverted at the moment might be the shallow, selfish people I am surrounded with everyday since high school. I've always had trust issues and I never get to keep good friends for a long time. I also barely see or hang out with the ones I'm close with... and they're what, one, two people from high school?
It's a problem because I long for companionship. Gross, did I really say that? Lilith v.23.0 wouldn't even dare mention her weaknesses! Then again, I'm the latest, upgraded version! I am better!
Acknowledging your demons is a good thing. You have to find out next, however, how to deal with them. All my personal issues are interrelated, so I need to fix them one by one. My desire for relationships with friends that run deep would affect my personality, my drive, my mood, my passion. I could be more successful, more confident, see more of the world, save those who need saving, cry less, be happier if I had more and better genuine relationships with friends.
I don't know where to start here; I think it all begins with myself. I think the current reason why I repel people (which is the problem) is that they don't give a shit about me. They don't give a shit because they're not interested in my shit. They're not interested because my shit is all negative. My shit is negative because I'm just generally sad. Because nothing really great happens in my life. Because I am demotivated. Because of my past traumas.
An ex-boss said you will have an AHA! moment and figure out how to go about things when you run out of answers to the question "WHY?". That's what I think I should do to fix my bullshit.
6. Self
I need to figure out who I am, and what I need to do. Funny how fateful meetings with blessings in disguise (hello, close friend (would you let me call you that?) who I hung out with overnight just weeks ago, and 40-something inspiring writer/artist/biker I just met!) trigger you to do something big: I'd like to call it PROJECT U (U as in you, and U as a Southeast Asian word meaning 'to progress') in my case.
When I find out what I want to do and do what I want to do in life, I'll be better. When I'm better, I can project better to other people (Miles, or, realistically, potential partners out there; relatives and loved ones; myself) and gain genuine friends.
Unfortunately, gaining friends and partners means grabbing their attention the way an effective advertisement does (via interest). I guess I just have to accept that humans will always be selfish and unconsciously consider this question: "what's in it for me?" before they even commit (be friends with, go out with, buy, spend time, effort, etc. on) to something/someone.
Fortunately, there are people like me who know this, and we can help others realize this, too. I think the end goal here is, when all is well with me, to help and save people in any way I can.
Wish me luck in this new project. Help me, God. Help me, Universe.
Lilith
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*Code name/s
